Eisenkot’s Coalition Puzzle, as Arabs Remain Pivotal, but No Longer the Only Route to 61 and thus Eisenkot’s Real Test Begins in the Knesset.

Post-election game is shifting from fixed blocs to interchangeable pivotal players: Eisenkot can potentially form a coalition with Arab parties and UTJ without Lieberman, or construct a broader majority in which Ra’am participates but Lieberman can still join because the government is not mathematically dependent on Arab votes.

‎Gadi Eisenkot’s four published principles for joining his future government change the bargaining structure. Rather than negotiating an unlimited coalition agreement with every prospective partner, ‎Gadi Eisenkot is effectively establishing an entry price: parties prepared to accept the common framework may negotiate over everything else. Public reporting confirms both the four-principle strategy and increasingly open coalition signalling from United Torah Judaism.

This expands ‎Gadi Eisenkot’s Feasible Coalition Set.

Three Routes, Not One

The original arithmetic appeared to make the Arab parties indispensable:

48 Zionist opposition + 19 Arab MKs = 67.

But the emerging negotiations create three strategically different routes.

1. Eisenkot + Arab parties

‎Avigdor Lieberman can remain outside. ‎Gadi Eisenkot could instead seek a majority involving Ra’am, the Joint List and potentially United Torah Judaism. This makes ‎Avigdor Lieberman important, but no longer an absolute Veto Player.

2. Eisenkot + UTJ + Ra’am

This may be the most interesting bargaining configuration. If United Torah Judaism supplies enough seats to create a majority independently of Ra’am, then Ra’am can still participate while ‎Avigdor Lieberman can argue that the government is not dependent on Arab votes for its survival.

In game-theoretical terms, adding UTJ changes Ra’am from a necessary Veto Player into a coalition participant with substantial policy leverage, while simultaneously reducing the Audience Cost for ‎Avigdor Lieberman.

3. Parliamentary cooperation without coalition membership

Arab-party power does not disappear even under a coalition excluding them.

The parties remain pivotal for Agenda Control, including the Speaker, committees and issue-specific legislation. This is particularly important because coalition membership and parliamentary cooperation are institutionally different games.

Recommendation to the President ≠ coalition membership ≠ external support ≠ legislative cooperation.

This distinction has become central to the post-election equilibrium. Earlier analysis had already identified Arab participation as the principal blind spot in opposition coalition mathematics.

The Real Shift: More Outside Options

The most important development is therefore not that one coalition formula has emerged.

It is that ‎Gadi Eisenkot now possesses multiple credible outside options.

United Torah Judaism reportedly signalling that its alliance with ‎Benjamin Netanyahu may be exhausted significantly increases its bargaining leverage.

At the same time:

• ‎Avigdor Lieberman can be bypassed if his veto price becomes excessive.
• UTJ can be bypassed under an Arab-supported configuration.
• Arab parties can be excluded from the cabinet yet remain powerful parliamentary actors.
• Ra’am can potentially enter a broader government without making that government mathematically dependent upon Ra’am.

This is classic coalition bargaining: a player’s power declines when credible substitutes appear.

And this was precisely the structural point identified before the election. Raw mandates are an incomplete measure of political power because the decisive question is who is indispensable and who can credibly be replaced.

The paradox

The paradox is that a broader coalition may actually make Arab participation easier, not harder.

If Ra’am is the 61st vote, ‎Avigdor Lieberman can describe the government as dependent on Arab support.

But if a broader Eisenkot-Haredi-Zionist coalition already possesses a majority, adding Ra’am changes the political framing:

Ra’am becomes a participant, not the government’s survival mechanism.

That distinction can dramatically reduce Audience Costs for right-of-centre partners.

Bottom Line

The emerging game is therefore less rigid than it appeared immediately after the election.

‎Gadi Eisenkot’s advantage is increasingly his coalition optionality: Arab parties, UTJ and ‎Avigdor Lieberman are not necessarily components of one indivisible package. They are partially substitutable players whose bargaining power depends on the credibility of the alternatives.

Yet Arab political power remains unusually high.

They can participate in government, provide external support, facilitate parliamentary majorities or simply decline to block specific moves.

The central question is therefore shifting from “Will the Arabs be in the coalition?” to “On which votes, and under which coalition configuration, are Arab votes actually pivotal?”

That is a much more consequential question for understanding the next government.